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Cart #rinejuzana-2 | 2020-01-24 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA
5

Hi!

Here is my first game I've made for PICO-8.
I've really enjoyed using PICO-8, and learned a lot!

The game "TRAVELER" has a basic game loop (without any win state) where you fly around in your spaceship, exploring a randomised area of the universe.

Shoot asteroids to find minerals.

Then you can start trading your loot at the planets you find.

Enjoy!

Murray
MUZBOZ Games

PS: You can also play the game on itch.io where there's some more text about the game.
https://muzboz.itch.io/traveler

P#72206 2020-01-24 04:59 ( Edited 2020-01-24 21:39)

I probably should add a way to toggle the music on and off, as some people might find it superfluous and annoying. ;)

P#72208 2020-01-24 05:04

Ahhh, hmmm. I seem to get a crash when playing this cartridge here, which I don't get in the editor, or on itch.io.

It crashes if I shoot an asteroid. Does anyone know why this happens?

I uploaded the cart using @clip, does that cause any issues like this?

The crash error says "Attempt to use global 'Type' (a number value)"

Any advice?

P#72209 2020-01-24 05:12

@MUZBOZ It could be because @zep is using a newer (unreleased) version of the Web Player for the BBS. 🤔

Though, based on that error - I wonder if you are somehow (accidentally) redefining the TYPE() function at some point? 🤷‍♂️

UPDATE: Yeah, on line 228:
type=flr(rnd(2.9)+1)

Type is a function, which you're overwriting here.
Would suggest picking a different name for your global var here. 😉

P#72216 2020-01-24 15:47 ( Edited 2020-01-24 15:50)

Thanks very much @Liquidreams!
That did it. Fixed now.

Is there any way to clean up (delete) old carts that are broken and whatnot?

Seems silly to have them lying around to confused people...

P#72223 2020-01-24 21:40 ( Edited 2020-01-24 21:45)

First time I played it I thought it's cool, but what's the point?
Then I started playing it again and managed to win the game.

I wasn't sure I could get to even 16384, but kept playing. Once I was at 25000 I had combed through the map pretty thoroughly. Luckily there were still some places with a more than 600$ and buying unergy for $3-5.

The addition of planetary cash and limits on stock make the whole thing quite interesting. At first the buy low / sell high strategy works, but then I started noticing that if a planet has great sell prices, it might be worth it to buy stuff with slightly higher prices. I just think of it as a discount. I think the concept would work well as a turn-based game.

I also noticed a bug or two. Sometimes when shooting a lot and flying around the game made sounds of asteroid exploding and collecting the stuff, all at once. I noticed it added stuff to the inventory. I couldn't get it to replicate properly, but flying over "zones" like edges of the map (so that all the particles disappear) seemed to have something to do with it. I was like the bullets hit an asteroid offscreen that instantly added a bunch of stuff to my inventory.

A related bug is that if you get in the way of an asteroid (that is slowly moving towards you), stop and spam bullets, the asteroid will float until it hits all of the bullets and spawn resources for every bullet.

Also, sometimes the trading screen opens, but theres nothing in it.

Great game, I had fun.

P#72284 2020-01-27 10:38
1

Ha! Great post @pobop. :)

You found some really interesting little glitches and issues there! I wasn't aware of several of those things.

I was actually just playing the game a bit myself, and I was reminded of some of the same issues (especially how, if you try to "dock with a planet" while the ship is right near the end of the planet, the trading UI does not appear.)

Similarly, when you do open the trading menu at a planet, all particles stop drawing. Might be nice if they froze in place, and kept drawing each frame.

Although, conversely, there's already an issue where other nearby planets and their names clutter up the screen when trading, making it hard to read the trading UI at times, and particles would just add to that clutter.

Perhaps the best solution there would be to visually "isolate" the planet you land on when bringing up the trading UI, by not drawing any other planets, particles, asteroids, etc, (even stop drawing the starfield maybe)... Something to ponder. :)

And yes, the game would benefit from having some sort of objectives to hit, like maybe needing to reach $5000, then you move on to another solar system and have to get $10000... and continue to "increase the goal" to harder challenges. But then, because it's very randomised each time a new game is played, I couldn't guarantee that a given objective could actually be met, so that would be unfair! And also, without some more interesting additions in terms of systems and mechanics, it'd probably still feel sort of hollow, ultimately.

It could be fun with a few "arcade" style enemies that you have to fight or avoid. That in itself could add quite a bit of interest.

At some point I was also considering some sort of ship upgrades you could buy, perhaps relating to cargo carrying capacity, defensive and offensive abilities. So it'd be a trade off - having to use up some of your money to increase your capabilities.

Planets could also continue to mine resources over time, so they would re-stock somewhat.

The prices at each planet could also fluctuate in response to demand. But that might just seem unpredictable.

Thanks for the detailed bug descriptions, and I'm happy that you enjoyed the existing systems!

I usually code in C# in Unity (still a learner, really!), and it was great trying something different, and thinking of everything just as sorta sets of data to act upon.

Not sure if I'll get back in and keep tweaking this project, but if anyone else wants to play around with it, I'd love to see further experimentation on it. :D

P#72287 2020-01-27 11:18 ( Edited 2020-01-27 11:24)

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